Entering its sixth year, The Tribeca Film Festival maintains status quo as a dizzying spectacle; commencing with an opening night gala hosted by Al Gore, this year’s festival offers over 150 feature films and 88 shorts accompanied by “Drive-In” outdoor screenings, a “Sports Saturday” in conjunction with ESPN, and numerous goodies from its major sponsor, American Express, to those in attendance. As tie-ins and sponsors for the festival multiply (along with screening venues—films will be shown as far north in Manhattan as Morningside Heights, and the premiere of Spiderman 3 will take place in Queens), there is little doubt of the festival’s local visibility or economic stamina. Yet in shedding its association with downtown Manhattan beyond its official title, Tribeca’s focus remains in flux, leaving both critics and the average viewer slightly discouraged over its hefty, cluttered and often middling screening options.
Braving the massive program, our festival coverage will range from upcoming mainstream releases to critically lauded foreign films and overlooked experimental pieces. The Tribeca Film Festival takes place in numerous New York City venues and runs Wednesday April 25th through Sunday May 6th.
Introduction by Jenny Jediny
Primarily composed of still photographs, So features Jennings’ own Markeresque — or introspective — voice-over narration, but reveals a far more specific background on its chronicler and director; in the midst of an identity crisis, Jennings’ trip is the realization of a life long dream, and her musings reflect the fulfillment (or lack thereof) her journey has produced.
Times and Winds’ greatest strength is in its minimalism, as well as its patience; the lush visuals and rhythmic flow gently draws us in, as the film nearly hums with the activity of life brimming among children and the natural world. This life however, as it so often happens, breaks unexpectedly, and we are left with a poignant reminder of the rush of impending adulthood and its consequences.
Paris is often cast in the movies as a city where love blossoms, but in Julie Delpy’s latest directorial effort, it is a chaotic place where the past and present come full circle to confront an otherwise happy couple. Taking a page from her collaborations with Richard Linklater, Delpy moves fluidly between slapstick comedy and raw drama as she effortlessly evokes the heady pace of a short stopover in the city of lights.
Jia’s films clearly find much that is regrettable in contemporary China’s mad dash toward capitalism. Whereas his earlier films followed young characters in search of successful lives beyond their increasingly marginalized rural hometowns, Still Life lays its gaze on those left behind in China’s interior, inhabitants of a vanishing way of life that will be quite literally submerged in the tide of globalization.
